The Life of St. Jerome. By Mrs. Charles Mercier. (Kogan
Paul and Co.)—Mrs. Mercier has endeavoured, she says in her preface, "to supply a want which has been felt in the popular Christian literature of the day," by writing this book. But St. Jerome has been already "introduced in a popular form to -English readers" by Mr. E. L. Cutts, in his "Saint Jerome," one of the S.P.C.K.'s "Fathers for English Readers." And Mr. Cutta has, we take it, this advantage over Mrs. Mercier, that his knowledge of the Father is first-hand, whereas hers, unless we have gained a false impres- sion, comes through other writers. St. Jerome is a personage of whom it is eminently necessary to form an independent judgment, and for this exact knowledge ia necessary, and, what is more difficult of attainment than knowledge, a judiCial spirit. Here it is that Mrs. Mercier especially fails. She is a thoroughgoing "Jeromite." We cannot recommend her book to readers who want an unbiassed judgment. —Leaves from St. John Chrysostom, by Mary T. Allies (Burns and Oates), may, on the contrary, be commended without reserve. There is, of course, much in the great preacher of Antioch which seems to us opposed to the real spirit of Christianity,—an asceticism, for instance, which went dangerously near to klanichmanism. And, again, there is a certain liability to error in judging him by extracts. Still, we have him in these extracts as he really is. To study his work as an interpreter of Scripture and a Christian moralist, requires the labour almost of a lifetime. Extracts made with judgment, and without a controversial purpose, which at least is not apparent in this volume, are certain to be really useful.
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